Tag: business

Posted in brain games, My Etsy journedy, Thoughts

Thoughts on Etsy and a Symbol Math Addition Quiz

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

My experiment with creating a brain game channel continues. My hope is that I will not only build an audience that will eventually allow me to qualify for You Tube monetization but will also lead to increase sales of my brain games in my Etsy shop and activity books on Amazon.

The first challenge will be to gain an audience. I am doing my best to be consistent in posting in spite of my chronic health issues. And thankfully I have enjoyed a little blimp of modest growth. Over the course of 2 weeks, I went from 15 subscribers to over 50. Those few days were really encouraging, but for the past few days that growth has slowed down and stalled out. Thankfully I am still enjoying a small bump in views, but the amount is probably 1/4 of what it was a week ago which is very disheartening.

Still, I am trying to keep up hope. I have taken a look at some of the game channels out there and I know that there is an audience for brain games. I mean some videos are only 11 months old and have over 664,000 views. There are even some videos that are less than a year old with over a million views. Then of course there some channels like mine where most long form videos are lucky to reach 50 views and a breakaway short gets four or five hundred views.

But at least since some channels in my niche are getting hundreds, thousands, and even millions of views there is some hope that over time my channel might grow and at least get a few thousand views here and there, even if it never reaches the dream of being one of the fortunate ones to get millions of views.

Unfortunately, outside of the struggle to grow made far worse by the interruptions caused by chronic health issues like anemia, there is one thing that I did not consider. And that is how will I know if my efforts are paying off?

Thanks to You Tube metrics I can see if my videos are getting likes and views. I can see if my channel is growing and getting new subscribers. Thankfully at least for now I have that bit of information. But what I did not consider is how will I be able to tell if after watching one of my videos, someone decides to buy a book or activity pack. With KDP you can tell which keyword brough in a sale using their paid add. But outside of using their add platform you have no way of knowing what led to a sale. They do not share any of that data with you so you have no way of knowing if that sudden bump in sales was due to the video you put on you tube, the post you created on Word Press, or just mere coincidence.

And unfortunately, it is not so easy to tell in Etsy what brought you a sale either. Over the past couple of years since I started on Etsy they have cut down the amount of information that they share with you. You can go to their metrics and see if someone came over from Facebook or Pinterest. If you want to know if someone came from a link on your Word Press or You Tube channel you can go to a spot and see if the web address appears. If you find the web address you can see how many views you got from there, but if they tell you any more than that, they have done a good job hiding that information.

Which I think is a big mistake. While I know that they want to encourage you to stay on their platform and not move over to your own platform the moment you make a few sales. But still, it is a bit short sided to hide all the information on what key words are working, which links from sites like You Tube and Pinterest are bringing in sales, because it prevents shops from knowing what is working and what is not working. They might wrongly think that the sudden boost in sales was due to the post they made on Pinterest and put all their effort into increasing their Pinterest presence, when instead it might be that a video talking about some of their products that are perfect for Mother’s Day got some traction and the boost came from that. Sadly, without easy to access stats, it makes it really hard to know if what you are doing is working, or it is just as useful as moving a pile of rocks from spot A to spot B, and back again.

Posted in life, My Etsy journedy, Thoughts, Trying to build a business, Uncategorized

Sometimes I Feel so Inept: Starting a Shop on Etsy

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

Its 8 days into November, almost the middle of the much hyped quarter 4 and my heart is on the floor. I have been listening to You Tube videos about Etsy, and hearing how this or that item has had 20, 30, even 260 sales in the last couple of days, or how this person was able to use the brand new Everbee email that connects to Etsy to not only collect over a hundred new subscribers and make over 500 dollars in sales on one campaign. Meanwhile, after pushing myself to the breaking, my shop is full of loudly chirping crickets, and I fell like an inept, useless, daydreaming fool.

I do not know if it is my lack of design skills, my poor understanding of how to write a product description, my choice of keywords, heavy use of budget friendly mock ups, or all of the above; but it could be the middle of summer instead of nearly the middle of the most longed for quarter of the year. After so many weeks of hoping, planing, prepping, and doing all in my power to make this season a big success, and yet I have not made even 1 sale this month.

I have had some of the You Tube videos that talked about how popular the something, something, repeat style design was so I thought I would give it a puzzle themed twist. I do not know if it is the font, keywords, or my budget friendly mock up, but for me this design has proven to be a flop.

Talk about the ups and downs, especially the downs of having an Etsy shop. I was so sure that now that I had a few POD items, and had even made my own puzzle version of some of the designs that were currently popular like my Thankful for Sudoku, Cozy Puzzle Season, and Farm Fresh Pumpkin Mazes that this year was going to be at least a little bit better than last year. Besides introducing a line t-shirts and sweatshirts, I had added mugs, totes, tumblers, and even a couple of glass cutting boards and an apron.

Besides listing multiple t-shirt and sweatshirts, I had created some fun puzzle designs, including an adorable series of animal detectives, that would make great, kid friendly gifts.

After watching dozens of hours of Etsy videos, researching keywords, and searching for a few popular demands to tweak to my niche, I thought for sure I had started to learn something. That my knowledge base was growing, and I was finally starting to get a slight hand on how to improve my Etsy shop. But after today, after hearing about all those sales, I feel like I am still back at step one.

No, make that step negative 1,000 or even 1,000,000. Yup, that sounds about right. 8 days into what is supposed to be one of the busiest months of the year, having more than doubled my listings from this time last year, and not 1 sale, and it really feels like instead of gaining the knowledge needed to move forward, I some how managed to lose what little I had and fall off a cliff.

Deep down I know this feeling is due to taking my eyes off how far I have come and instead focusing on others. But as much as they say don’t compare yourself with others, that is almost impossible to do.Its impossible to watch an Etsy tutorial where someone talks about how they did this, designed that, listed that, advertised this way, created xy sale, and made hundreds of dollars, without comparing your hibernating snail progress to their glowing accounts of how much they tutored this person or that person to making hundreds of dollars a month, without wondering what is wrong with you.

No mater how educational the video, it is hard to repeatedly hear the success of others, and compare your stagnate state and think that you must be the most inept, thick brained person on the planet who will never learn what it takes to move their shop forward. But eventually, I know, that if I keep trying, a sale will come, and hope will spring up again.

If you are thinking about starting your own Etsy journey, click this link to get 40 free Etsy listings. https://etsy.me/3MhfyfA

Click here, if you would like to check out my Etsy shop.

Posted in life, Thoughts, Trying to build a business, Uncategorized

Beware of Emotionally Counting Your Chickens Before They Hatch When it Comes to Your Etsy Shop

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

At this moment I am not sure if I consider the old adage of never count your chickens before they hatch to be wiser than I thought or more frustrating than I can ever imagine. Because since I started my journey on KDP and Etsy, I have found it to be both. On the one hand it has repeatedly proven itself to be true, which has become a source of intense frustration.

Month after month it has felt like there is some unseen rule that stated that with only a couple of exceptions, my shop could only get 1 sale a month. For my first year, except for 1 month where I got no sales, 1 month where I got 3, and another where I got 6 the rule did not deviate. So far for my second year that number has been bumped up to a mind boggling 3 sales.

And like last year, there was a thrilling month where the numbers suddenly spiked and I got 8 budget saving sales. I remember how excited I was that month as for a short time I got a sale every 3 1/2 days. For a few weeks I was able to open my laptop with a sense of eager expectation. Every time I got a sale I would pull out my calculator and crunched the numbers to determine how many visits I would need before I would get a sale with that new conversion rate and how much I might earn after Etsy fees if I got x amount of visitors a month divided by the number of visits needed to translate into a sale with my current conversion rate.

Yes, it was a bad thing to do, it went against every rule I had set for myself. But after the first 3 or 4 sales, I began to dream what I would do with so many sales. I let myself imagine how this sudden boost in sales would slowly but steadily snowball from making enough sales to cover Etsy listing fees, then adds, then an etsy Seo aid like Everbee and Erank, to a program that let me sell custom products like Hello Custom, then the paid version of Canva, etc until I not only could pay for my business expenses, but all my other expenses and a few wants as well.

Oh how hard it was when the next month came and I got more views than I had ever gotten, yet my sales plummeted back to the seemingly newly set in stone 3 sales a month. What a bitter pill it was to realize, that even though I had told myself that I would never allow myself to do so, I had counted my eggs before they hatched, and as usual, it was a big fat zero.

That month I promised myself I would not let it happen again. But then came all the videos talking about Q4 and all the holiday sales that come with it. Last year, had not been very amazing. I only had a handful of digital download puzzles. I think that at the peak of Q4 or quarter 4 I had a total of 40 or 50 listings so it was not a big surprise that q4 went by with only a small bump of 2 extra sales.

But after watching all those videos, and realizing that this year I had added a variety of POD items such as puzzles, t-shirts, and mugs, I began to feel very excited. While my digital download puzzles and coloring pages had appealed to those who were traveling or looking for some project to keep their young holiday guest busy, there had been nothing that would appeal to someone looking for the perfect gift to give a loved one or a friend.

But this year was different. Thanks to the addition of POD items like puzzles and mugs, I now had a growing collection of gift-able items. And after watching hours of videos of people talking about how they would make more in Q4 than any other time of the year, sometimes making in those 3 months as much as they had made all year long, I was overflowing with excitement. Because I had worked slowly and steadily throughout the year, my collection of 40 or 50 items had more than doubled.

Continue reading “Beware of Emotionally Counting Your Chickens Before They Hatch When it Comes to Your Etsy Shop” →
Posted in life, Thoughts, Trying to build a business, Uncategorized

Start Building Your Media Following Now

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

Maybe you happened upon a video about how someone who opened an Etsy shop and a year later they had made over $60,000 in sales, how using Canva and Printify you could design t-shirts to sell on Etsy, or a video using Etsy as a side hustle to make extra cash, and you said to yourself, I would like to do that some day. Well if your are thinking about starting an Etsy shop, even casually thinking about starting one, I would recommend that you start building your media presence today.

You do not have to sit down and map out your business strategy or even know the name of your future shop. What matters is that you are starting the process of building a loyal audience who eventually some will also become loyal customers.

Just look at some of the homesteading channels like Arms Family Homestead and Lumnah Acres. Well neither of these channels has an Etsy shop, their path to success highlights the importance of building an audience as early as you can. Both of these channels started off by showcasing a portion of their daily life on the homestead. They made videos introducing us to their farm animals, showing them working in their garden, mowing their lawns, doing various building and repair projects, etc.

Eventually, as their audience grew, they would occasionally design a few hats, mugs, t-shirts, and sweaters that they sold to make some extra cash. But now that both channels have grown immensely, they have harnessed the power of having a big audience to create their own shops on much bigger scale. In the past couple of years, Arms Family Homestead transformed a portion of their barn into a work/storage area where they could store supplies so they could make and sell their own t-shirts, hats, etc that displayed some of their most beloved animals. Recently, Lumnah acres also set up their own website and began selling selling a handful of merch items such as a sticker, some pencils, and a couple of T-shirts along with their main draw, coffee. And thanks to the power of their 345,000 plus subscriber base, their 3 different brands of coffee debut was a success and quickly sold out multiple times. Because they had already built a loyal audience by the time that they opened their shops, it did not matter that there were only a few colors and items to chose from as their audience was excited to get a Rufus t-shirt or a bag of Lumnah coffee.

Continue reading “Start Building Your Media Following Now” →
Posted in life, Thoughts, Trying to build a business

Quarter 4 is Here: What Will it Bring

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

It is officially the beginning of quarter 4. It would be great if that meant that an instant switch would flip and sales would dramatically improve. Unfortunately that is not the case. If there will be a real pick up, it probably will not happen for a few more weeks. Hopefully, even though the sales are not to expect to reach full swing until November, this month will prove to be better than last months single sale.

Thankfully today I did make a sale, but it was only for $3. So only getting 1 sale would be a real kick in the budget under normal circumstances. But since this is my first real shot at making some meaningful q4 or quarter 4 sales, I have been putting every ounce of spare energy that I have into stream lining production so I can make and list as many items as possible. I figured if I could just cut down the time to create the listing pictures by 1/3, that would at least mean an extra 1-2 products a week, and on a really good week an extra 3-4.

If I can get an extra 5-10 sales over this time last year, the effort would stand a chance of paying for itself and maybe a few other items. But with each listing costing $0.20 each, I really need those extra sales to cover the cost. Twenty cents might not be much to some, but twenty cents here and another there can quickly add up to a couple of extra bucks. And when you have almost nothing, it does not take long to become a really big deal.

Besides worry about not being able to make enough sales to at least break even and maybe purchase a couple of small items to improve my shop for next year, I would also feel really discourages as I have put a whole lot of energy into this project. And I have been working extra hard to get as much done as I can before my health crashes. Even now the muscles of my head are getting so tight that I cannot relax them. I would love to be in bed, but my the extra work has brought back my queasy stomach so it is harder to get a good night sleep.

But all of it would be worth it if my shop would start to make that turn towards profitability. It does not have to make a big bump, even though I would love it if it did, but at least if it could make a big enough turn that where there was zero sales I made 3-4, where I made 1 I now got 4-6, and instead of 8 being my best month it was now 16-20 that would be some type of measurable improvement. One that would at least allow me to cover all my etsy fees including ads, and probably even 1 or 2 other expenses.

Yes I would like more, but even that small boost in sales would give some meaning to what I was doing, and some hope that after a much needed break, my next effort will take me closer to my first major goal of earning enough to cover all of my business expenses. And give me some hope that some day soon I might actually be able to earn enough to pay my bills and some occasional wants. And at least be able to hold up my head knowing that after years of struggling, I had finally reaped the reward of some time of measurable success.

If you are thinking about starting your own Etsy journey, click this link to get 40 free etsy listings. https://etsy.me/3MhfyfA

Click here, if you would like to check out my Etsy shop. Where you will find a variety of fun items such as this fall inspired puzzle of Turkey’s demanding Thanksgiving be switched to Happy Sudoku day.

Posted in My Etsy journedy, Trying to build a business, Uncategorized, Videos

Setting up Sales Tax or Figuring out the Right Price: Which was Harder on Etsy

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

I have spent the past few weeks trying to prepare for quarter 4. Last year, because I only had digital items like coloring packs and logic puzzles, which except for being travel friendly, are not that big a draw. Therefore, there was nothing major for me to do.

But this year I have added some POD or print on demand items like mugs, puzzles, and T-shirts. Because of their potential for being given as gifts, getting things right this year is going to be much harder. This year little details like price, photos, and keywords will require much more effort than it did last year.

After watching multiple videos on Etsy and the POD items I am working on this season, it was time to set down with a pricing calculator to try and set a price that was high enough to give me a few dollars of profit yet low enough to be attractive to buyers.

It would seem like after watching multiple videos and aided by the handy Etsy profit calculator on Erank figuring out a fair price should be easy. But for me anyways, it was anything but easy as within minutes my head was swimming with a bunch of unanswered questions. Was it better to go as low as I can and have no sales, or was it better to go higher so I could have a 50% or higher sale during Black Friday/cyber-Monday week? Free shipping, reduced shipping, or regular shipping which was better?  Should i experiment with multiple price points or have everything set to the same price?

Talk about analysis paralysis, my head was so overcome with choices that within a few minutes my head was spinning and pounding so hard that I had take long breaks to rest and try and figure out what to do. The stress was so bad it made me wonder, which was worse, trying to navigate the new world of sales tax or setting up prices?

Because Etsy is a market place and thus is required to collect sales tax on our behalf, it would seem like it should be an easy answer. Etsy collects the taxes for us and Etsy turns it in for us, so what is the problem? The problem is that even though we only sell digital and POD items and only sell on market place platforms like Etsy and Amazon Market Place so we do not have the hassle to collect sales tax in many states we still have for a license to collect sales tax and turn in a $0 sales tax.

Talk about making your head spin. I had no clue where to begin. I spent an entire hour on hold, being switched from one department to another, just trying to figure out what form I needed to fill out and where it was. Thankfully the people at the state tax form were nice and helpful. They went out of their way to find the answer to my questions and even offered some helpful info to get me started on the right foot.

Thanks to their help I was able to set up an account and muddle my way through filling out the paper work. But it only took a few days, when I went back to try and figure out where and how to turn in my zero-dollar sales tax form, to realize that I had quite a few more questions. For a few hours it would have been hard to answer which of the two issues was harder to understand.

That was until I found a helpful video on You Tube about setting up for collecting sales tax and turning in a zero-sales tax form. I found there step by step tutorial quite helpful. Before watching their video I had no idea what form I was supposed to fill out. Thanks to their video, I found out that one I had found the correct place to sign in, and I was even using the right info to try and sign in. The problem was that I did not know that I had to remove the hyphens if I wanted the sign in info to work. Thanks to one video, the frustration of multiple unsuccessful log in attempts was solved and in 1/3 the time it normally takes me to figure out keywords for an easy listing, I was in and filling out the paperwork.

If you live in Florida or have nexus in Florida, you might find this series on Florida Department of Revenue by James Baker CPA to be helpful.

While I still have a lot more to learn about how sales tax and filing forms work, thanks to this helpful video, right now I can confidently say, that thanks to Etsy being a market place platform, filling out the required sales tax form is so much easier than trying to figure out how to price a t-shirt or a mug.

Click here, if you would like to check out my Etsy shop.

And if you are thinking about starting your own Etsy journey, click this link to get 40 free etsy listings. https://etsy.me/3MhfyfA

Posted in life, Medical, My Etsy journedy, Thoughts, Trying to build a business, Uncategorized

Enduring the Hidden Drop of the Etsy Roller Coaster

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

I have been trying all morning to create a post about the struggle of trying to build an Etsy shop while dealing with poor health and a slumping economy. There is so much I could say now that I have passed the 1st year mark with my shop about the importance of listening to old adage of if it is not broke don’t fix it, the importance of listening your body and knowing when to give your body the rest it needs, accepting that not everyone will be an overnight success, and more.

But today my brain is just to tired to focus. As much as I would love to write an article saying that if you just think positive there is delay or disaster that will stress you. But that is not true.

Like it or not there are days that you will wake up and say to yourself, what am I doing? Why am I even trying when nothing I do work? And you will be tempted to give up. And strangely enough, some of those days might come the day after you make a sale.

Sure there are going to be many great days when your mind will be full of hopes and dreams. Dreams that are bolstered by the remission of your symptoms and encouraged by a few sales. Like a well designed roller-coaster, there will be a period of steady climb with only a few mild dips that are perfect for lulling you into a false sense of confidence before a blind turn reveals a stomach shattering dip.

With a new high of 8 sales, July was one of those months. Finally after months of getting only with 1 sale and only 3 months where I got 2 or 3 sales, my slow but steady work was starting to paying off. With a few sales now behind me, and more than a hundred and fifty listings, my business was on the cusp of taking off as each new listing, sale, and the occasional review only adding to the growing momentum. With each sale I was calculating the conversion ratio to estimate what my sales would look like if I got x amount of visits and how may visits it would take to pass the next mile marker of 10 sales per month.

After such an exciting month I was eager to see the progress that August would bring. Now that I had close to 160 listings, 30 sales, and 2 reviews, surely I was set to see my biggest month ever with 9, 10, or even 11 plus sales. And from the amount of traffic, which was 4 times the amount of my normal traffic, it seemed like that hope was going to become a reality. Day by day I eagerly looked at my inbox hoping to receive a message from Etsy letting me know that this massive (at least for me), influx of traffic had converted into sales. Morning after morning I woke up filled with hope, eager to see how much money I had made overnight, only to be met with disappointment.

Continue reading “Enduring the Hidden Drop of the Etsy Roller Coaster” →
Posted in Fun Puzzles, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Word Searches

19 Sales and Learning the Lesson to Leave Well Enough Alone

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

Ten months into my Etsy journey and I have made 19 hard earned sales. For months at a time it seems like there is an unwritten rule that I can only make 1 sale a month, no matter how many visitors come to my shop. Then, thankfully, there is a month like this one, where I get a slight boost and make 3 sales, and then back to crickets for weeks.

So, after listening to some You Tube videos, I have been trying to work on improving SEO and making a few changes to some of my pictures that I felt could use a better background. I still have a long way to go to make the needed improvements. But one lesson that I quickly learned, thanks in part to some mistakes that I have made in the past on KDP, is that the saying leave well enough alone or if its not broke, don’t fix it, is a very important saying for your Etsy shop.

If a listing is doing well, don’t tamper with it. After making a couple of changes to a listing that was doing fairly well, and experiencing a sudden slow down (you think I would have learned my lesson from KDP), I heard some very valuable advice from an Etsy youtuber. If you want to see if you can improve it, and there is another category that it can go under, make a copy, change the first picture, and make one or two tweaks so you know if the changes you made improved your listing or hurt it. Kind of like an A B testing at the optometrist office where the doctor ask if you see better with A or B or they are both about the same.

For now, since I do not get many sales, if my listing recently had a sale or two, I leave well enough alone and give that listing a chance. That way I do not sabotage a listing that might have taken off, but thanks to my tweaking instead ends up sinking like a lead balloon. Instead, if I want to make changes, I will see if I can add it to another category and make a change or two and hope and pray that at last one of my listing will take off and I can stop spending months wondering who wrote the invisible rule that I can only get 1 sale a month even if if it is only for$2

If by any chance you are looking for some fun word games, then you might enjoy my Fun Word Games Digital Download Activity Pack, Word Search Puzzles, DecoderRing, Word Scrambles, Alphabet Soup, Zigzag Puzzles, Anagrams, pack.